Earnings study finds gender inequities persist in Rhode Island

Monday

Apr 7, 2014 at 9:57 PM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Women in Rhode Island still earn less money than men, and data examined by the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island show that women of color earn disproportionately less than white women when compared...

Kate Bramson Journal Staff Writer journalkate

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Women in Rhode Island still earn less money than men, and data examined by the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island show that women of color earn disproportionately less than white women when compared with white men.

“It’s not just women who are impacted by this inequity,” said Women’s Fund CEO Marcia Coné, in an interview. “It’s families in Rhode Island. If women and their families are not able to participate fully in the economy, if they’re not able to buy goods and services, if they’re not able to buy groceries, then not everyone in Rhode Island is participating in the economy fully. Then we can’t expect the economy to improve.”

The nonprofit Women’s Fund will release data examining pay inequities in Rhode Island on Tuesday, dubbed “Equal Pay Day” in the United States. That moniker is intended to highlight the fact that women would need to work an additional number of days — from Jan. 1 through April 8 — to catch up to men’s earnings from the previous year.

The Women’s Fund compiled its data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the Economic Policy Institute and HousingWorks RI.

The data show that 56 percent of Rhode Island’s minimum-wage workers are women.

The fund’s compilation also shows that 71 percent of families with children living in poverty are female-headed households; just 10 percent of those families are headed by men.

The fund also reports that for every dollar earned by a white man, an Asian woman earns 74 cents; an American-Indian woman earns 68 cents; an African-American woman earns 61 cents, and a Hispanic woman earns 51 cents.

That last comparison regarding Hispanics is particularly striking for Coné.

“What we also know in Rhode Island is this is the fastest-growing population,” she said. “This is our future — the best and the brightest — and we’re not paying them equitably.”

Coné said the Women’s Fund recommends the following policy changes:

Make sure the state’s fair-employment laws work for everyone by eliminating loopholes and strengthening penalties for employers who do not comply.

Strengthen protections for workers with families by adding family status to the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

Make sure working women can continue to work by creating reasonable accommodations for those who are pregnant and ensure everyone has access to paid family leave.

Remove roadblocks to full employment by funding child-care subsidies, improving child-care tax credits and ensuring that all families can obtain flexible schedules when needed;

Raise the minimum wage.

Increase opportunities for entrepreneurship and access to capital.

The nonprofit research and policy-advocacy organization expects to introduce a legislative platform in 2015, she said.

This year, the fund is focusing on advancing the pay-equity issue and what it calls “pregnancy fairness.” Legislation has been introduced at the state level and in both Providence and Central Falls to eliminate pregnancy-related discrimination, Coné said.

For example, such discrimination arises for “moderate and low-income working women who are working in service industries where simple things like having water becomes problematic.”

Since the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island began at the Rhode Island Foundation, its mission and work have evolved, Coné said. The fund began as a grant-making organization after people donated money to work toward eliminating gender inequity.

“In the last few years, we’ve sunsetted our grant-making,” Cone said, “because we’re focused on advancing policies that we think are going to address the issues that we now need to move forward for the state.”

Read the infographic, 'The gap between what men and women earn persists'